Naima

Nothing could have prepared her for the feeling of crossing the stage. The rush of power. The feeling of freedom. The upliftment from the crowd. She strutted in her skimpy bikini along with the rest of her section and took her spot at the front of the stage. 

“GO DEH FLUFFY!”

She smiled. She waved. She blew kisses. She apprehensively searched the crowd and waited expectantly for the looks of disdain. She found none.

“How’s this for a Carnival body, Steven!” she mouthed at the camera. She would not allow the creeping doubts from the previous months to dampen her spirit. Not while she had the rum in her system. She bobbed and weaved to make her feathers dance some more and so the stage lights could pick up the glitter on her skin.

She would not allow her doctor telling her she was severely obese in December the year before, pointing pompously at the BMI chart on the wall to bring her down. She would not allow the dire warnings of heart failure and joint pain to douse her fire.

She would not allow her trainer, Steven’s texts admonishing her for indulging in a glass of wine with her bowl of grass for dinner telling her she would NEVER get a “Carnival body” at this rate to stop her from peacocking at the front of the stage.

She would not allow her aunt’s barbed comments about her body, comparing her to her slender sister, rebuking her for nyamming too much and ignoring her faint replies about only having a cup of coffee for the day to stop her from turning her ample behind to the camera and swaying her hips sensuously.

She wouldn’t even let the bitch behind the counter at the mas camp snarkily telling her the bikinis don’t go up to that size as she recommended a tankini drag her out of this high.  

It almost mattered. It mattered until she saw Naima.

She smiled to herself and wined and bubbled at the front of the stage while she thought of Naima.  

She found Naima one day when she was trying on a bathing suit. As she tied the final string and prepared for the disappointment to set in, she looked up.

“Now wait a damn minute! Who IS that?”

“Miss? You need some help?”

“No! It’s fine. I’m ok!”

“You nah come out so we can see you?”

“No. I already took it off. Ring it up. Do you have it in any other colour and in this size?”

“We have a pink and a yellow.”

“Put them all in the bag!”

She sped home so she could find out more about Naima.

She laid the bathing suits reverently on the bed. She took out her phone and annoyedly swiped away a message from her trainer expressing his disappointment that she had only lost one pound since he had started training her and urging her to try to cut back on some more sugar that week.

She shed her outfit, carefully picked to conceal all the parts of her she hated. As each item came off, she kept scrolling through her phone, searching frantically for Naima.

When she was naked, she faced herself in the mirror.

She gawked at her large breasts. A gift from her grandmother. They had an otherworldly glimmer today. Her eyes moved down to her pudgy stomach. She caressed it lovingly. She looked at her thick thighs. She noticed the little imperfections and smiled as she traced each them with her finger. She turned around and counted her back rolls, grinning as she watched their movement when she swayed her wide hips from side to side. She cupped her butt cheeks and gave them a firm squeeze and tried to see if she could count the dimples.

“BITCH YOU IS FOINE!”

“Naima, who are you talking to?”, her mother called from the other room.

“Myself!”